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Henry David Thoreau Quotes

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Be not simply good - be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Being is the great explainer.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Faith never makes a confession.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau Quotes




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